Tokenized fairness choices for OpenAI being provided to Robinhood customers in Europe are usually not formally licensed by the corporate, the AI large stated in a social media publish.
“These ‘OpenAI tokens’ are usually not OpenAI fairness. We didn’t accomplice with Robinhood, weren’t concerned on this, and don’t endorse it,” OpenAI posted on X. “Any switch of OpenAI fairness requires our approval — we didn’t approve any switch.”
Earlier this week, Robinhood announced it was launching tokenized inventory buying and selling based mostly on the Arbitrum blockchain to its customers in Europe. As CoinDesk reported earlier, customers could have entry to 200 equities and ETFs, in addition to a secondary marketplace for fairness in scorching startups like OpenAI and SpaceX.
The thought of tokenized fairness in not-yet public corporations is nothing new.
In 2018, a blockchain startup known as Swarm stated it will quickly offer tokenized shares in startups — together with Robinhood.
CoinDesk reported at the time that most of the corporations Swarm claimed it will offer fairness in pushed again and stated such a sale can be unauthorized however Swarm stated the whole lot got here from “permitted secondary market transactions.”
Taking a look at Robinhood’s present tokenized providing, it is unclear the place the supply of fairness is. There is some speculation that the fairness represents curiosity in OpenAI shares which were already acquired by way of licensed channels, based mostly on feedback made by Robinhood’s CEO.
Hypothesis:
In the course of the presentation, Vlad particularly talked about having a relationship with a rich investor with OpenAI / SpaceX shares.
These shares might seemingly nonetheless be below the unique traders identify (both a person, or an entity), which OpenAI has already… https://t.co/bfskaDWf5O
— David Hoffman (@TrustlessState) July 2, 2025
Others have warned that OpenAI — and different startups — can be nicely inside their rights to not honor the sale.
This highlights one other danger on the personal firm aspect I did not deal with yesterday, however we frequently see in these secondary markets. There isn’t a requirement for these corporations to honor the sale of the fairness you suppose you personal – in truth I stated lately at a personal convention that I… https://t.co/nyzhjfgXwV
— Rob Hadick ＞|＜ (@HadickM) July 2, 2025
“I anticipate this pure pressure to lead to extra personal corporations simply cancelling fairness gross sales altogether for many who violate their shareholders’ agreements,” Dragonfly Basic Accomplice Rob Hadick posted on X.
Robinhood didn’t reply to a request for remark from CoinDesk.